The almanac

Today is Wednesday, March 13, the 72nd day of 2013 with 293 to follow.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Neptune, Mercury, Venus and Saturn. The evening stars are Mars, Jupiter and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include English chemist Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, in 1733; astronomer Percival Lowell in 1855; baseball Hall of Fame member John "Home Run" Baker in 1886; publisher Walter Annenberg in 1908; bandleader Sammy Kaye in 1910; L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction writer and founder of the Church of Scientology, in 1911; former CIA Director William Casey in 1913; cartoonist Al Jaffee in 1921 (age 91); Helen "Callaghan" Candaele Saint Aubin, known as the "Ted Williams of women's baseball," in 1929; singer/songwriter Neil Sedaka in 1939 (age 74); political commentator Charles Krauthammer in 1950 (age 63); actors William H. Macy in 1950 (age 63), Dana Delany in 1956 (age 57) and Emile Hirsch in 1985 (age 28); and rock 'n' roll Hall of Fame member Adam Clayton, U2 bass player, in 1960 (age 53).

On this date in history:

In 1639, Harvard College in Massachusetts was named for John Harvard, a founder and major benefactor of the school.

In 1781, the planet Uranus was discovered by British astronomer William Herschel.

In 1868, the Republican-dominated U.S. Senate began impeachment proceedings against U.S. President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat and successor to Abraham Lincoln, climaxing a political feud following the Civil War. He was acquitted by one vote.

In 1881, Czar Alexander II, the ruler of Russia since 1855, was killed in a St. Petersburg street by a bomb thrown by a member of the revolutionary "People's Will" group.

In 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, banks throughout the United States began to reopen after a weeklong bank holiday declared by President Franklin Roosevelt in a successful effort to stop runs on bank assets.

In 1943, a plot by German officers to kill Hitler by blowing up his plane failed.

In 1974, the oil-producing Arab countries agreed to lift their five-month embargo on petroleum sales to the United States. The embargo, during which gasoline prices soared 300 percent, was in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel during the October 1973 Middle East War.

In 1989, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration quarantined fruit imported from Chile after traces of cyanide were found in two Chilean grapes.

In 1990, the Soviet Congress of People's Deputies formally ended the Communist Party's monopoly rule, establishing a presidential system and giving Mikhail Gorbachev broad new powers.

In 1992, more than 400 people were killed when a powerful earthquake hit northeastern Turkey.

In 1996, a gun collector opened fire on a kindergarten class in Dunblane, Scotland, killing 16 children, their teacher and himself.

Also in 1996, Liggett, the fifth-biggest tobacco company, broke ranks with its rivals and settled a class-action cancer lawsuit.

In 1997, a Jordanian soldier killed seven Israeli schoolgirls at the Israeli-Jordanian border.

In 2000, the Tribune Co. and the Times Mirror Co., media giants featuring two of the nation's oldest and largest newspapers (Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times), announced they would merge.

In 2004, Iran called an indefinite halt to inspections of its nuclear facilities.

Also in 2004, the California Supreme Court ordered an end to same-sex marriages in San Francisco.

In 2007, Mexican President Felipe Calderon expressed opposition to the U.S-Mexican border fence the United States was building in an effort to control illegal immigration.

In 2008, the body of Iraqi Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, who led Mosul's Chaldean Catholic Church, was found in Mosul. He had been kidnapped in February.

Also in 2008, gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time.

In 2009, admitted Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff, accused of defrauding thousands of clients of billions of dollars in a massive Ponzi scheme over 20 years, pleaded guilty to 11 counts that lawyers say could net him a 150-year prison sentence.

In 2010, a string of explosions triggered by a reported four suicide bombers struck Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 35 people and wounding another 45, all said to be civilians.

In 2011, Saudi and United Arab Emirates troops were invited into Bahrain to shore up the beleaguered regime under fire by protesters seeking government reform.

Also in 2011, the Dalai Lama, 75-year-old spiritual leader of Tibet, announced his resignation from his second job, as his people's official political leader, a post he had held since he was 18.

In 2012, an oil cargo ship collided with a passenger launch in Bangladesh's Meghna River, claiming at least 26 lives with more than 200 people reported missing.

Thirty passengers of the Dhaka-bound MV Shariatpur-1 swam to shore.

Also in 2012, the death toll reached 19 in reprisal attacks and the suicide bombing of a Catholic church in Jos, Nigeria.

A thought for the day: William Casey was quoted as saying, "I pass the test that says a man who isn't a socialist at 20 has no heart and a man who is a socialist at 40 has no head."

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